Search engine newcomer A9 has spruced up its local Yellow Pages search by …

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Amazon is upping the ante in the local search race, as its A9 search engine is beginning to serve up images of storefronts with search results from its new A9.com Yellow Pages. The A9 search engine, which launched in September 2004, uses Google's search engine and a ever-growing image database of over 20 million images from 10 metropolitan areas. Performing a search using the A9.com Yellow Pages will return the usual contact information along with a map from Mapquest, a picture of the store, and a link to place a call to the business over the Internet.

To compile the database of pictures, Amazon sent out a fleet of vans with digital cameras strapped to their roofs. The images were then synchronized to a GPS unit to match them with specific addresses. To account for potential GPS inaccuracies, Amazon developed custom software to tighten up the linkage between picture and street address.

With the search business having become highly competitive, any new, value-added feature a company can come up with could end up being the primary differentiator between it and its competitors. Perhaps the pictures could be that angle for A9, which also offers a diary feature for users to take notes on search as well as tight integration with other Amazon features like "Search Inside the Book."

Right now, the image database only covers the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. Even those areas do not have comprehensive coverage yet, based on a few searches. If you look for a business in one of those places, and you do get a picture of the storefront, you will be able to do a virtual stroll up and down the block. This enables users to not only get an idea of the location from a map, but also some visual landmarks to along with it. Such a feature might be a big help for people like our own Hannibal, who has a hard time finding his rear end with both hands, let alone navigating Chicago.